Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Warrior Three is about waiting and watching. For me, it represents sitting on the sidelines while other people are in center stage. This card is also about teamwork and being part of a larger group. I don't want to be part of a larger group. I want to be someone's one and only and not part of a group of friends.

Maker King in this position is about being my own king and being responsible for myself. I enjoy being independent and taking care of myself, but sometimes it gets lonely to be the one that is always responsible for taking care of things.

Death is an interesting card to come up in this position and I'm not sure what it tells me about what I am settling for in relationships. What it may tell me is that I am holding on to things that I should let go of because they are no longer serving my needs. Sometimes in order to move on, we need to let go of things that are holding me back. I'm wondering if this card is telling me that I need to let go of my infatuation with someone and cut that cord so that I can have a deeper and more real relationship. This card is also about shedding and one of my words for this year is shedding as in getting rid of things that no longer serve me. This card seems to be telling me it truly is time to shed those relationships.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Maker Five tells me I want full transparency and honesty in a relationship. I do not want someone who is hiding anything. I also want someone who is capable of asking for help and doesn't use passive aggressive tactics to manipulate me. I want someone capable of having an honest conversation about who they are, what they want from a relationship, etc.

Dreamer Two is all about making decisions. I want someone who knows what they want and goes after it. I don't want someone who is purely a dreamer who thinks up great schemes, but never does the hard work required to make things happen. John had great ideas, but he never had the grit and the gumption to bring them to fruition. I need someone with grit and gumption who will actually follow through.

Maker Two echoes that theme in telling me I want someone who takes responsibility for their life. Who is capable of owning their mistakes and who doesn't constantly blame others for their sorry state in life.

All of these cards are telling me that I want a grownup and not a little boy.

At this point, what am I refusing to accept about my shadow and my relationships?

Dancer Six tells me that I cannot be the center of the universe at all times. Other people have their own things going on and I can't expect everyone to constantly drop everything to take care of my emotional needs. If everything is constantly drama, than no one will be there for me when i really need people to support me. This card also tells me that I need to let go of the crappy messages that I learned in my childhood. Those messages are not supporting me and are not helping me to grow as a person.

The Tower tells me that I am refusing to accept that people will like me for who I am without the mask on. I love this version of the Tower because it shows a mask being blown away which tells me it is about the fakeness and the illusions being blown away. I always feel like I have to be someone else in order for people to like me. I have to do something for them, I have to buy them something, etc. This card is telling me that I don't need any of that. I just need to be myself, but I can't accept that.

Temperance is telling me once again that I need to open my heart. The heart on the fairy figure is clearly open and the man below is also opening himself up. Opening my heart is life and love will bring me all that I desire in relationships, but I refuse to accept this. I continue to look for ways where I can have an amazing relationship without opening my heart, but Temperance is telling me that will not happen.

Friday, February 23, 2018

Warrior Ten tells me that I cannot carry the entire weight of a relationship on my own shoulders. There is a give and take. I need to let go of my need to "buy affection" or to do more of my fair share of the work so that people will like me. I need to hold people accountable in both work and personal settings. That's hard for me to do because I am a people pleaser, but other people have to own their actions and have to own their responsibilities in friendships, in family relationships, and in other relationships. Part of this is choosing to value myself and choosing to say that if I value myself, I cam not going to carry the burden of always being the one to contact people. If someone values me and considers me their friend, they need to share the burden of connecting. If someone does not share the burden of connecting, that tells me that I am a friend of convenience and that I don't really matter to the other person. And that includes X! He never reaches out and I'm tired of being the one to maintain our friendship.

Dancer Four tells me that it is not all about me. I need to get out of my own head and look around me and start forming relationships with people around me. I do spend a lot of time living in my head, not from a vanity perspective, but from a perspective of being wrapped up in my own world and tuning out what is going on around me. Cam calls me on that all the time because I am just so wrapped up in my own things that I just don't pay attention.

The Maker card reiterates what Warrior Ten tells me, I cannot be all things to all people in a relationship. I have to be comfortable being my own shining star and letting other people be their own shining stars. I also cannot be all things to all people and I have to accept that. People who want to use me should not be in my life. I also have to do a better job of drawing boundaries around time with my family, especially C's demands.

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Maker Six (six of pentacles) is a card about generosity and being able to both give and receive. However, the six of pentacles in the Druid Craft tarot, which was the first deck I ever read with, told a tale of an old man being asked to give more than he was able to. I've been working to view the six of pentacles in a more positive light, but it is hard to overcome first impressions. For me the Six of Pentacles tells me that I am afraid of getting into relationships where I will be asked to give too much. I spent 22 years with someone who took all I had to give and demanded more and I am really fearful of getting into that type of relationship again

In my role as Maker Queen, I am very open to the energy of those around me for healing and other purposes. What I've found is that if I engage with and try to help people who have less than positive energy it drains me and leaves me feeling depleted. The gift of healing is a tremendous asset, but without proper shielding it can also leave me feeling energetically drained.

The Magician always makes me feel insecure about relationships because I am really good at manifesting stuff, but I have not been able to manifest the loving relationship that I want in my life. It makes me wonder if I am being punished for something I did in a past life or if the person who is right for me is not available, or why I haven't manifested the relationship I dream of.

Warrior Two is the card of power awakening and although power awakening is a a really good thing, it can also be a little overwhelming. I now that I can overwhelm people sometimes with my attitudes, my thoughts, and my power and while I will never choose to be less than again as I was with my ex, I will choose to listen more and talk less. I'm learning that sometimes raw power needs to be moderated and dialed back to enable and support people versus overwhelming them.

Warrior Two gives me the gift of courage and helps me to jump into the middle of new situations and make my way to the other side. However, courage is something else that can be scary for other people especially if I set the expectation that I think they are a wuss if they do not have the same level of courage that I do. This is something else I need to moderate and practice holding people's hands and guiding them versus pushing them off a cliff.

The Hermit tells me that I love to retreat into myself and shut people out. That is intimidating for people and people often take it personally. In reality, it is not meant personally it is just me needing my personal space and doing what I can to protect and care for myself. One of the things I can do to take care of myself better and not put up the huge shields is make sure I take care of myself all along and not let myself get so run down that the only way I can recover is to isolate myself.

This was an incredibly powerful reading and although it is a great reminder that I am a very strong and fierce person, it is also a reminder that sometimes there is strength in dialing back our capabilities.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Maker Four tells me I need to learn to say no to obligations, etc. that are not in my best interest. I shouldn't say yes to things that mean I end up spending the entire weekend working with no down time. I need to learn to set better boundaries. It also means I need to stop using work to escape into and as an excuse to not meet people.

Dreamer Three tells me that I need to feel the heartbreak and let it go. I need to accept the cleansing relief that letting go of the pain can bring. I need to lean into the pain instead of running away from it.

Dreamer Queen tells me to think things through and to use my logic and not just my heart. Dreamer Queen is a stalker card as she has shown up multiple times.

Up until now my readings for this work have been spot on and have made a lot of sense. I struggled with this reading as the cards did not seem to make sense for the question. I'm going to continue to pray and meditate on it and the cards may make more sense later.

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Warrior Two tells me that it is time for me to make a choice about what I really want in life and the last few weeks have helped me to make that choice. I'd always though that I was a white picket fence kind of woman and that the white picket fence needed to include a husband, but I'm realizing that I'm perfectly content all by myself. I do not need someone to make me whole and complete and that actually having someone in my life 24/7 is overwhelming. As I write this, I realize that John probably always recognized at some level that I did not need him and he worked to make me need him. This card is also about awakening and claiming my power and realizing how strong I truly am.

Dancer Princess tells me it is time to believe in magick and to open my heart and soul to love and joy. It is time to let go of my cynicism and believe in unicorns and love. Opening my heart to love means that I might be hurt, but it could also bring me great joy.

Dreamer Princess tells me it is time to clearly communicate my wishes to the universe. Dreamer Princess tells me it is time to tell the universe what I want and to be prepared to go after it. By clearly communicating what I do and do not want, I let go of the whispers and the fear. Claiming what I want seems a little intimidating, but I'm ready to move forward with my life and to get out of limbo.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Dreamer Queen is back to tell me that one of the causes of my negative traits in relationships is that I live in my head and that I prefer books to people. Oddly enough I lead with my heart at work because I love what I do, in my personal life I very much lead with my head because my head is what keeps me safe. My heart made the bad decision to marry John so I have to pay for the rest of my life by living in my head. However, I have a choice and I can choose to take a more balanced approach and listen to both my heart and my head.

Warrior Five tells me that I put obstacles in my own way by continually coming up with excuses to not find love and to not let people in. I can always find something else to occupy my time or something else to do versus letting people in and spending time with people.

Oh the cards are talkative tonight. The last card I pulled is the Hermit and that is so true because I would rather stay in my comfort zone than get out and meet people. Oddly enough, this card rankles me sometimes because my ex used to say I was a hermit and it made me angry because he said it in such a derogatory manner. When we divorced, I embraced being a hermit because it meant that I could control who came into my life and I didn't have to play by his rules anymore. However, I may have gone too far and built the walls too high.

As much as I love the Dancer Two card in its aspect of soulmate, the message it gives me about this question is that I often turn my back to people I love. If things get too emotionally intense, I will back away and be standoffish rather than be emotionally available and open to another person. I also tend to pull away when conversations get too personal. I don't like to let people in because of my fear of being hurt so I walk away and show my back.

The flip side of this is Dreamer Ten which tells me that if I get comfortable with someone I can bleed my emotional pain all over someone else. Up until recently, I've taken emotional hostages and expected them to be my emotional support human and take whatever pain and ick I've dredged up. If they pulled back or had their own issues, I got angry because they weren't there for me in the the way I needed them to be there for me.

Dreamer Queen sitting on her pile of books tells me that when I am in uncomfortable situations, I approach them from a place of the mind and not the heart. This reminds me of my original list of qualifications for a partner. Because my ex was basically a deadbeat, my first criteria for being with someone was that they made as much or more than I do. A lot of people pointed out to me that I was ruling out a lot of potential partners on something arbitrary. They made the argument that a lot of guys were not like my ex and were self supporting and would not have their ego's bruised by someone making more money than they did. To a certain extent, I see their point, but my fear has kept me from removing that criteria.

As always with the Tarot of the Sidhe, I'm getting a lot of good reads that are truly speaking truths I need to hear.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

The Fool is almost too cliched in this reading as he is telling me that I have to take a leap of faith. I cannot stay in the safety of my own head. I have to leap out and take risks and meet people. I also have to trust that even if things don't go as I would like, that there is a plan and that the divine has my back.

The choice is mine, according to Dreamer Two. I can choose to stay in the darkness and be alone or I can choose to venture out into the sunshine and make friends and have relationships. I can't blame anyone else for my being lonely if I am choosing to be alone.Maker Prince brings it home by telling me I can find the gift of connection if I follow the advice of the Fool and Dreamer Two. I will make friends and I will find the love I am looking for if I am courageous enough to step outside my comfort zone.

And I normally pull three cards, but a fourth card was a tagalong with the Maker Prince and I could not resist turning it over. It was Warrior Princess, the gift of courage. This is spirit's way of telling me that I will be given the courage I need to step outside my comfort zone.

Dreamer Four tells me that I value my me time over relationships and it is true because a lot of times if the decision comes down to chilling at home and going out to meet people, I will choose to stay home and chill. I don't necessarily think that that is a bad thing because I am very much an introvert and need my recharging time, but I can't sit and bitch and moan about not having a lot of friends if I am going to consciously choose alone time over meeting people. There is also a possibility that I choose alone time over meeting people because I am afraid of interacting and being hurt.

Strength is another card that makes a lot of sense in this reading as I am a very strong and fierce individual and I don't need a lot of help navigating life. Additionally, because I am afraid of meeting people, I often choose to be strong and just get things done versus asking for help. I can never be disappointed and have people say no if I never ask.

One of the things that I am realizing as I mature and heal is that I sometimes have problems differentiating between illusion and intuition when it is something I have strong feelings about. The Moon is telling me that because I am terrified of being hurt either intentionally or unintentionally, I an convince myself that my intuition is telling me I should not do something when in reality it is my fear.

These cards were really spot on and they are forcing me to look at how my fear is manifesting itself in my life and how I'm using a lot of excuses to prevent myself from meeting people.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Warrior Three tells me I like to be distant from other people. I either like to be the center of attention or I like to be on the sidelines. I don't like to let people in. I also like it when we are focused on an activity or something and not on each other. This pretty much sums up who I am. Everyone things I'm a very gregarious extrovert because I do well in work situations where we are interacting with a goal in mind. We are working as a team to accomplish something and I do great in those situations. It is interacting with people in more casual and relaxed settings that I struggle with.Dancer Princess tells me that I see other people as being better able to relax and play than I am. I see myself as consigned to a life of drudgery while everyone else gets to have fun. That may just be a reflection of where I'm at right now as I'm sitting here working at 10 pm and my cohorts have all logged off. I'm feeling a little resentful about that right now.

The High Priestess is another card that tells me I like to view people from a distance and set myself apart. Sometimes I see them through a veil as if they aren't really existing on the same plane of existence that I'm on.

The Moon is the card that leaped out of the deck last and it reiterates the message above that I see people from a distance and almost as if through a veil. The Moon tells me that I see their reflections and don't truly see them. It is almost as if I don't see them as fully formed, but see them as existing only in relation to me.

These messages are really profound, but it is going to take me some time to reflect on them as they are incredibly deep.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Dreamer King tells me to cut through the illusions and the bullshit. I have spent enough time working on healing work that I know it is bullshit to think everyone will treat me like my ex-husband. I also need to cut through my old beliefs that came from my misogynistic upbringing. I do not need a man to be happy. I do not need a man to be successful. It would be nice to have someone to hang out with and confide in, but I am a fully functional human being all by myself without anyone else. That is a really hard concept for me because I saw how divorced women were treated when I grew up (and yes that was in the 70's and 80's). Divorced women were to be pitied for not being able to keep their men and they were expected to either go out and get a new man or to move in with their parents. Intellectually I know that is total garbage, but I guess there was a part of me that believed that bullshit. Dreamer King tells me that I have the responsibility to let go of that way of thinking.Dancer Two is a card that I love because it shows the soul mates back to back instead of face to face. I like this because it tells me that soul mates can be connected and always be there for the other, but that being soulmates doesn't mean I have to be completely focused on the other person. Even though we are partners and together, we can still have our own lives and our own interests. This is the complete opposite of my marriage where John said he wanted us to build our own interests, but every time I tried he sabotaged me. I wanted to go back to school and he put up road blocks. I started working out after work and he started taking an earlier train so I'd have to pick him up sooner. He also expected me to be interested in everything he did and got pouty when I wasn't interested in football. That is now how a relationship should work and that is the very clear message I'm getting from Dancer Two.

Dreamer Eight tells me that I sometimes get caught up in my own illusions and it is okay to cut through them and to recognize them for what they are. I have chosen to trap myself and it is time to free myself. I have it within my power to cut through everything that is holding me back and to step out of the trap. All that is holding me back is my own beliefs. This card has come up multiple times lately as it came up for my card of the day on Friday and it came up when someone read for me. The universe is screaming at me that it is time to step out of my own constraints.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Dreamer Ten tells me that I hesitate in relationships because I am terrified of getting hurt. I'm terrified of having my heart ripped out again and I know that I could not handle this hurt again. Interestingly enough, Ten of Swords came up yesterday in a reading I received yesterday as a reason that I hesitate in relationships and it is a mental block and not a block from my heart. My brain has convinced me that I am unlovable, that I am not worthy of love, and that everyone out there who might be interested in me will take advantage of me and bleed me dry. I am projecting all of the hurt from my ex-husband on everyone else. As long as I continue projecting on everyone else, I will never be able to have a relationship because I will keep everyone at arm's length.

Dreamer Nine is interesting as I have nightmares about not being loved and being unloved forever, but it is my own fear that is keeping love at bay. There is no room in my life for love as long as I am haunted by nightmares of being hurt. I think it is time that I actually addressed the physical and emotional abuse that I received. For the most part, I've dealt with the emotional abuse and am in a place where I would recognize emotional abuse for what it was. I've also gotten so much stronger at setting boundaries and cutting people out of my life. I would also walk away after the first time someone hit me, but I'm terrified of letting someone close enough for there to be a first time. My mind has built barriers to opening up and letting people in to protect my body.

Dancer Seven is telling me that I am drowning in these illusions. I have so bought into my belief that anyone I meet would hurt me that I can't seem to release this and let it go. I have built my barricades up so high and I am so convinced that my only alternative is to keep people out. This is why I am in such a place of fear and it is so difficult for me to actually connect with people and make friends and have relationships.

This was an incredibly powerful and insightful reading and it has identified something I didn't realize before as I had kind of shrugged off the physical abuse my ex put me through and focused on the emotional abuse, but I've realized that my mind has built a lot of barriers to protect myself from this abuse.

Friday, February 9, 2018

Dancer Three tells me that I often go overboard to hide the pain in my heart. At home, I am very much an introvert and don't really have any friends. I freak out and am truly terrified of meeting anyone. However, I cover this up by being an extrovert at work, being bubbly, interacting with people, teasing them, etc. I don't feel like I can truly be myself so I hide who I am in and that influences how others see me because they see the mask I put on instead of the real me.

Maker Ten is another card that tells me i do a good job of maintaining the illusion and only letting people see what I want them to see. I don't want people to see who I truly am. To see how damaged I am so I go overboard on putting on the happy camper face. This card also goes into why I stayed in my miserable marriage so long. I was so terrified of anyone thinking I wasn't perfect or anyone judging me for getting divorced, that I stayed and put on the happy face instead of doing the right thing.

Interestingly, even though I do a good job of putting o the happy face and sometimes playing the fool, Dancer King tells me that people see me has having great emotional depth and being deeper than I let on sometimes. This card also tells me that sometimes people who are sensitive can see the despair and loneliness in my soul even though I work hard to keep it hidden.

How does the shadow of past relationships influence current relationships?

The Star tells me that every person I meet will be measured against X and they most likely will come up short. The problem is that my relationship with X while deep and emotionally intense, was not a full time in your face kind of relationship. We never lived together, had kids together, fought over bills, etc. We got to go out and have fun and be on our best behavior. Ironically, one of the things I always get pissy about when John talks about how wonderful his girlfriends are is that he never was married to them, was poor with them, etc. I guess I'm being kind of hypocritical because I'm measuring everyone I meet against the same kind of standard. The other thing the star tells me is that because deep within my soul there is a little part of me that still wants to have a relationship with X, that hope stands in my way of future relationships.

The Magician, in this instance, is a charlatan and someone who is all smoke and mirrors and not who he appears to be. John was definitely a charlatan. When I met him he was in program and I truly thought that he believed in the 12 steps and was truly walking the walk. However, once we moved in together, I realized that he was paying the steps lip service and that he really just wanted to be a party boy. He also told me that he wanted someone who would walk beside him and be his partner. He said he didn't want someone who walked in the shadows. However, when we were together that changed and he was constantly trying to take me down a peg. I'm afraid of getting involved with someone else only to find out that they are also a fraud.

Dreamer Ten reminds me of drowning in my own blood and not being able to see straight because of the pain that is just pouring off of me. I am afraid of meeting and getting into a relationship with someone else because I am afraid that I would not be able to stand having my heart broken again. It hurt so bad and I literally felt like I was crying blood because of my heart ache. I keep people at arm's length because I am terrified of being hurt again.

These are intensely powerful cards and I can feel the heaviness rolling off of them. There is a part of me that says how will I ever trust someone enough to get into a relationship with all of this baggage hanging over my head.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The fool jumps off a cliff when I am untrusting as if pushing me to trust, trust, trust. I also find that when I am untrusting, I am put in situations where I have no choice but to trust. That is pretty true for me as I took a new job last year doing organizational change management, but while we are selling OCM, I have to be billable so I have been doing project management work for the last year and that has been incredibly hard for me because I do not have the skills to do all the work myself and I have had to trust my team to do the work for me. Although there have been a few bumps along the way, ultimately the team delivered.

Dancer Four tells me that when I am untrusting, I start to spend too much time looking inward and examining my own soul without liking what I find. When I am untrusting, I start to see everyone else as other instead of seeing our similarities. Dreamer Four also tells me that when I an untrusting, I don't see the help that is all around me and I reject people.

When I am untrusting of the world at large, I will often find one or two people that I do trust and become obsessive with them. Dancer Prince speaks of this obsession as he peers fearfully from behind the tree and watches the world as if it is a dark and scary place. Being untrusting means that I am coming from a place of fear and I divide the world into "Us and Them."

All in all, my shadow starts indulging in bad and fearful behavior as a reminder that I need to open my heart once again. I have to be honest and say that I am so flipping sick of hearing that I need to open my heart. It seems that the cards tell me that constantly to the point I just don't want to hear it anymore.

Warrior Ten tells me that my shadow likes relationships to feel needed. My shadow wouldn't know what to do with itself without someone relying on him. However, this is a double edged sword as my shadow also feels used by people who "walk all over it." My shadow also takes on other people's burdens as a way of feeling important and needed. In some ways, my shadow would feel as if it did not have a right to exist if it wasn't doing for others. This was the mentality that my mother drilled into my head as a child and it is a hard mindset to break.

The Hermit shows the flip side of my shadows relationship to other people. Once I have reached my fill of other people, I like to retreat and to be by myself with no human interruptions. I need the room to contemplate and to breathe. Being around people can be suffocating for me and it can be incredibly overwhelming.

I had to smile as I saw the warrior king as the warrior king is prancing alone in a field of battle. He likes his glory and he likes to be the center of attention. My shadow loves to be the center of attention. I've gotten better about it, but in the past I truly had to feel as if everyone was paying attention to me or I would cease to exist. I liked to be the center of attention for things I did well, but I was also content being the center of attention as a victim.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Pan tells me that my lover's shadow is in part about indulgence and drunken lust and that is very true. My ex was all about indulgence and having a good time. He was someone who didn't want to be responsible, but always wanted to have a good time and he always wanted me to be at his side. It was as if he did not understand that I had responsibilities and when I had to be up early, I did not want to be out until 3 am partying. When we were first together, I'd let him lead me down that garden path, but then I grew up and became...

The Elder who tells me that I realized I had responsibilities in life and that if I wanted to be successful, I had to fulfill those responsibilities and could not do that if I was out partying. The Elder is also about tradition and ritual and studying and doing the work. The Elder is about doing the work required for initiation and not just stepping up and getting it handed to us. Oddly this card resonates with me for another reason as well as my ex always accused me of getting my degree handed to me and not working for it. While it is true that my parents paid for my degree, it is also true that I worked hard for everything I had and I continue to work hard for my success.

Warrior Six tells me that my ex was all about the adulation and the accolades and not about doing the work and that's true. I always wrote for the sheer joy of writing, but his focus on writing was selling and I didn't like to write just to sell. I've realized that I write as a form of catharsis. It is about putting my story down on paper. Sometimes I'd turn my stories into fiction because it was less painful for fictional characters to deal with my pain than it was to acknowledge the pain as mine. My ex is all about the victory lap and he's also all about using people to share their glory. He was horrible to our kids, but he loved to brag about them.

Sunday, February 4, 2018

The first card I pulled was the Sun and I'm not sure how to interpret this card for this position. I think the best I could come up with is the hive mentality. The fairy queen is pulling me in to follow the hive up the mountain and that truly fits my ancestral background as they had no tolerance for people who were different or who went their own way. If you chose to be different, you were mocked or "put in your place." This card should be about success and joy, but the way it is drawn the success and joy feels almost ominous. I almost get a feeling of the borg out of this card as it is about assimilating people.

Dreamer eight is about being trapped in a web and it follows along with my interpretation of the sun
card. This is about being pulled in and not knowing what is reality and not knowing what is smoke and mirrors. This reflects both my family and my relationship with John as I was constantly told things that were not true. I was told that I was unattractive, that women could not lead, that I was nothing. It gets to the point that you don't know what is the truth anymore and it is all too easy to lose yourself in the lies and keep yourself trapped because you don't know what reality is.

The Wheel of Fortune is an interesting card as it is all about fate and about believing in fate and not free will. The one thing that strikes me about this card is that the fairy is offering food and it seems that is almost an attempt to draw me in and to pull me into the games. This card is also about gambling and that is something that makes sense based on my mother's history with lottery tickets.

The Dancer tells me that I like to be alone. I like to dance alone, I like to just be alone. It is hard for me to be part of a group as my normal state of being is aloneness. This is a card of healing and love, but for me that is healing myself and not healing the world.

Warrior three tells me that sometimes everything in my life is performance art. I show up because I have to instead of because I really want to. This works well at work where I get paid to show up and basically tell a story, but it doesn't work as well in my personal life because it keeps me from forming the real and intimate connections that I crave. This is supposed to be a card of collaboration, but for me it speaks to people working alone.

Maker King tells me that I intimidate people. This may be because I am skilled at what I do, but could also be because I give off a vibe that I'm not interested in hearing other people's opinions. I like to be the king and I like to think that my skills are so special that no one could improve them. Interestingly, I've been getting an education in learning to sell lately as I've had to put material together for our sales team and every time I do it, it gets a little bit better, but I'm not quite there it. I have to be honest and say that this is literally one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do.

Friday, February 2, 2018

Maker Prince--The maker prince is kind and gentle and spends time in nature with animals. My knowledge of my shadow and my honesty with myself will help me to build true connections with people. I don't put on airs or pretend to be something I'm not. I also acknowledge my flaws and work hard to truly change my interactions with people. All of these things are attractive to people because they get the sense that I am real. I'm also grounded and am beginning to be comfortable in my own skin, flaws and all.

Death--I have learned over my life that nothing stays the same and that sometimes we have to say

goodbye to things that matter to us so that we can move on. One of the best lessons I've learned from John is to let go when things are no longer working. I held on to the dead and lifeless corpse of my marriage for way too long and that caused a lot of problems for me. I've learned that it is okay to work on relationships, but sometimes you have to acknowledge they are dead. Although I don't always welcome endings, I've learned to welcome the transformation that comes with them. There is always something new to discover and to learn. Change is always hard, but it is easier when we welcome transformation and accept that there is something new and different coming into our lives.

Dreamer Five--At first glance, this is a very depressing card as it is about hope being discarded and about powerlessness and resignation. However, I've learned that unrealistic hope can be unhealthy. Sometimes we cling to a dream that we hope will work out, but in reality we've outgrown that dream and it is time to move on. When we aren't able to discard this hope and move on, it can hold us back. It's really interesting that this card showed up for me because I am finally at a point in my life where I've let go of the hope that a relationship will work out with someone. Intellectually, I've known it for a couple of years, but int eh back of my mind I had hope that it would magically work out. Being able to let go of that hope means that I can finally move on and be ready for the right relationship for me.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

The hanged man can tell us a lot of things as sometimes he tells us we need to get another perspective, but in this instance the Hanged Man is telling me that my relationships are about self sacrifice. I sacrificed myself for my ex-husband. I made myself less and less so that he could feel better about himself until I almost disappeared. I sacrifice for my children so that they have what they need and I sacrifice at work. The lesson I've been learning about sacrifice is that it is important that we know we have a choice in saying yes or no to sacrifice. I was raised to believe that my needs were secondary to everyone else's so I never thought that I had a choice in saying yes or no to sacrifice. I've learned over the last eight years that I do have a choice and sacrifices that are willingly made are much sweeter than those that are demanded.

The Warrior tells me that I am fierce and protected in all of my relationships. I never feel comfortable letting my guard down and just being. I always have to be on the defensive and always protecting my tender heart. Additionally, I love to drive and be in control. These characteristics make it very hard for people to get to know me. The cards have been telling me for a very long time that it is time to let down my guard and to let people in and it is something that is very hard for me to do.

The fool is double edged as I leaped into my marriage without careful consideration and ended up in an untenable situation. Since then, I have drawn up strict lists of criteria for a future mate that almost no one has a hope of meeting and I'm applying those criteria like a USDA judge grading meat. If someone scores too low on one criteria, I'm not even willing to "waste my time" meeting them. The fool is telling me that I cannot just leap in with nary a care in the world, but I also cannot be too closed minded about the people I let into my life.

Overall this was a scarily accurate reading and truly reflected where I am in life. I need to continue to reflect on this.